Ok, so I moved to my very own apartment. One of the great things about that was that I had more walls to put up more beautiful art. I recently purchased two great pieces that I’m very happy with.
The one above is “Spring” from Martine Johanna, which is my third piece of her. Really love her illustrations, you should check them out. The big, bad wolf that keeps staring at you is by Tarik Arnoutovic, working under the name 215.dk.
Last weekend I’ve seen True Grit at a lovely movie theater in Amsterdam. Really liked the atmosphere of the raw wild west, which wasn’t the typical Hollywood glamour version of it. Jeff Bridges,who plays one of the main characters Rooster Cogburn, has been taking some wonderful pictures on set. Above is my favourite, check all the others here: Making True Grit. Via
All you need is a pop-up book and a projector to create this magical, little world on its own…
The Ice Book from Davy and Kristin McGuire on Vimeo. ViaThe movie Black Swan will only come out in The Netherlands on February 24th 2011. Until then I can enjoy the beautiful posters created for the film.
For more posters, check Fubiz.
(c) Marcus Thomas for the 44th Kent State Folk Festival
“Who?” you might think. Louis is a Dutch illustrator and designer who creates simple yet beautiful artwork. He creates geometrical ink designs, mostly black but sometimes with some subtle use of colour too. One fact about his work is that he works on old book covers. This is something that makes me, as a bibliophile (yes, that is a word), even more enthusiastic! You can check his work at his website, or his better updated Flickr account.
Spaceball by (c) Louis Reith
Last week, Louis won an art competition organised by Nike. Five artists were asked to design a piece to support the Dutch National Soccer Team during the World Cup, below you’ll find Louis’entry. People were asked to vote via this website and Louis’ work won deservingly. His piece of art is printed on a huge canvas and will be shown on the center spot during the first friendly match of The Netherlands (vs. Ghana) on the 1st of June.
(c) Louis Reith for the Nike Art Challenge 'Bloed Oranje'
Yes I’m quoting the Paul Rand. We’re going into the last weekend of the Graphic Design Festival in Breda, and the organisation has tried to live up to Paul’s quote as much as possible. Most of this biannual festival takes place in public space, making it accessible for more than just the people in the industry.
Graphic Design Festival Breda 2010
So what’s this festival all about? I can’t tell you yet, because I’ll only be checking it out myself later today. One thing I definitely want to see are the Designer Toys XL. One of them is painted by a designer I recently discovered, the talented Louis Reith. Another expo I want to go to is O.K. Festival, which presents the presents “the energy and the visual explosion of strange, beautiful and original magazines.” Not only do I love magazines, I have been following the founder on Twitter for quite a while now and am happy I can finally check out his work. Last but not least I am also kind of curious about the Graphic Surprise so I will be passing that by, just like all the other exciting things that are going on.
This edition's theme is Decoding. That's me standing at one of the many signs that are all over town.
A plus is that I have my flatmate and her boyfriend with me, who both are graphic design students. I´m looking forward to their take on things. I think GDF is a great initiative, but to make it a true festival it needs more workshops, moments of interaction and parties. If you want to check it out yourself you need to be quick, because the GDF ends tomorrow!
P.S. Paul Rand is also known for the following design quote that I love: “Design is so simple, that’s why it’s so complicated.”
Often I come across crazy things on the interweb where one might think ‘that person has way too much time on their hands.’ However, I’m sometimes jealous of those people (I’m typing this after getting up at 6.45h to go to the gym, go to work afterwards untill 19:30h, go home to cook, only to continue work untill writing this post at 20:45h). Having too much time means you have time to think, time to get inspired, time to create. Here’s some great examples of completely random awesomeness that came after having too much time.
First, there is photographer Stefan. For the duration of one year, he’ll post pictures of what Stormtroopers do on their day off. Not only are the pictures of amazing quality, it’s also fucking funny. You can get your daily dose of stormtroopers via Flickr, e-mail, twitter or Facebook.
Stormtroopers by (c) Stefan
Stormtroopers by (c) Stefan
Second, there is this 15 year old kid who created a painting in MS Paint, the most tedious Microsoft program out there. It took him 4 (!) years to create it and such perseverance is admirable on its own. You can see the whole painting and details in this video.
Third, there is this cool parkour motion reel that I unfortunately can’t embed here. The video says it is illustrated with technical pen, frame by frame. That sure does takes patience but it’s worth the effort. Enjoy!
Last week I was lucky enough to see two really interesting documentaries in Amsterdam. I have to admit that I was late for both of them thanks to my wonderful planning, but I’ve seen more than enough to know they are worth watching.
The first and most amazing was the documentary ‘Let it Ride’ about the legendary Craig Kelly. The documentary shows Craig, his view on snowboarding and life in general. What impressed me the most was the footage of Craig snowboarding in Iran, the first foreign snowboarder ever to do this. While watching you get a hint of what ultimate freedom he must feel when boarding of the most incredible mountains. To me, and I’m a person who doesn’t really like to watch sports in general, it was just amazing. What even made it more magical was the music used to support the documentary, with Björk’s Hyperballad at the end as an absolute favourite. I’ve seen most of the documentary, but I will definitely go back to see it all. If you happen to be in Amsterdam , you should check it out at FOAM. It’s part of a bigger exhibition curated by Ari Marcoupolis – viewable until 16th of June 2010.
The second documentary I saw was ‘Art & Copy’, which is about advertising and inspiration. On their website they say the following: ”it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry.” They show all the classics (unfortunately mostly US-based) and also have old footage that gives you almost a Mad Men feeling. I found it interesting to see the development of the advertising industry and how some of the well-known people in advertising think about their work and the industry as whole. If you like advertising in any way, make sure you go to SMART Project Space where the documentary will air until March 30th 2010.
Recession / Recessione - A Nonexistent Exhibition
Although probably no artist likes to admit this, one needs money to be able to create art. Recession is therefore bad news for art. A design studio in Italy came up with a creative way of showcasing art when money is low with “Recession / Recessione – A Nonexistent Exhibition“.
According to the creators, this book (or actually more a catalogue) is a great example of an exhibition that will never take place due to budget limitations. It’s a nonexistent exhibition, you can create one yourself in your own space with the art provided.
Recession / Recessione - A Nonexistent Exhibition
Between September and November 2009, 35 artists worldwide were asked to interpret the R word through texts, images, artwork or music. Their work is combined in a 1 kg book and an audio CD, which you can amazingly buy for free (you only pay shipping costs). Best idea ever! I ordered mine last week and thanks the lovely people at the studio I received it within days. The ones I liked best were Maxime Buechi and Slavs & Tartars’ “The Hustle”, Camille Vivier’s “Candle II”, Mark Borthwick’s romantic picture “If were pioneer’s”, the design of Paul Bouden’s “Bring it on” and the imaginary mixtape full of miserable songs (“The light at the end of a tunnel…is a train”) by Dirty Sound System. Go order one yourself here, there are only 800 copies available and I have the feeling they are going fast!
